


An Ever-Fixed Mark

by fadagaski



Series: Love's Not Time's Fool [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Blow Jobs, Domestic, Dress Up, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Smut, Frottage, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Porn with Feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:00:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25897093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadagaski/pseuds/fadagaski
Summary: Love is not loveWhich alters when it alteration finds,Or bends with the remover to remove:O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,That looks on tempests, and is never shaken.- Sonnet 116, William ShakespeareIntimacy in five moods through history.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Love's Not Time's Fool [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1961773
Comments: 36
Kudos: 152





	1. Chapter 1

#### Palo Alto, USA - March 2022

They’re meant to be finding clothes suitable for undercover work. Nile dropped off a whole heap of stuff from their San Fran lock-up plus whatever Nile had had delivered (“Alexa, search beanie hats on Amazon.”), as well as the job brief from Copley: Joe needs to be some kind of hipster architect while Nicky plays pretend as a tech entrepreneur. They’ve got pictures, printed out from the Internet and taped to the full-size mirror, for guidance. Apparently there’s a _look_ to emulate. 

That’s what they’re meant to be doing. 

But then, as Nicky was digging through the pile in just his briefs, he came across the turquoise feather boa from Pride 1996, remembered San Diego, blistering sunlight, rainbows in every direction. And then he spied a pair of enormous, sparkly platform shoes that were all the rage back in the age of glam rock when Ziggy Stardust and Elton John paraded across radios and TVs worldwide for fashion to follow. 

By the time Joe comes out of the bathroom freshly showered, saying, “Do you think I should shave my head for this job?” Nicky is already five inches taller than usual, boa draped around his neck, turning to look languidly over his shoulder. 

Joe gapes. 

Sauntering across the hotel room - unsteadily, it _has_ been fifty years _at least_ since he wore these last - Nicky stops well inside Joe’s personal space and towers over him. Joe looks up, slow drag of his eyes gone smoldering dark, and swallows, hard. With the tip of the boa, Nicky traces a sensuous line along Joe’s nose, across his lips and through his beard, down his throat to where his heart is thundering in his chest. Joe’s hands come up to grip Nicky’s hips through the cheap cotton briefs, fingers flexing over the bone. The aircon is on but the heat between them flares all the same as Nicky wraps his arms around Joe’s neck, swoops down and crushes their mouths together. Joe moans, muffled and low, palms wisping up Nicky’s bare back trailing goosebumps in their wake. Nicky sinks a hand into Joe’s curly hair to tilt his head back further, gets a delicious thrill from the novel angle as he plunges his tongue into the wet heat of Joe’s mouth. 

They break apart gasping, spit strung between their lips like spider silk. 

Joe says breathlessly, “Is that what they’re wearing in Silicon Valley nowadays?” 

And then Nicky is laughing, laughing, helpless to stop it, forehead thunking down on Joe’s shoulder as Joe laughs too, gets his hands around Nicky’s face to pull him back up into a smiling kiss more teeth than anything else. 

“Oh, oh, wait here habibi,” Joe says, pushing Nicky upright (steadying him for a moment on his wobbling ankles, and if that also involves more stroking hands over skin than necessary, well, who’s to say?). Then he darts into the bathroom, back out again in a flash saying, “Hipsters like old style glasses so I was thinking this …?” 

Joe slides something onto his face. 

He looks up. 

One eye is squinched shut while the flesh of the other pinches around an honest-to-god _monocle_ , thick brow overhanging and his lovely face gone lopsided, cycloptic. 

Nicky can’t help it, snorting the laugh through his nose as Joe flutters that one eye at him, warped behind the old glass (Nicky thinks back, has _vague_ recollections of the 1850s, top hats and morning coats). When Joe steals the feather boa to wrap around his neck, Nicky’s done for, wheezing too hard to stay upright. He goes down right there on the carpet, leaning back on his elbows, his legs at weird angles because of the platform shoes. 

Never one to waste an opportunity, Joe stands astride Nicky, bending at the middle to peer at him one-eyed, the boa draping towards the floor. “Is this not what ‘hipsters’ wear?” Joe asks, mock seriously, finger quoting in the air. Nicky sucks in a breath and holds it to try to kill the laughter spasming his diaphragm. There’s a twist to Joe’s lips that says he knows he’s setting himself up when he adds, “You think I couldn’t pull this off?” 

Nicky flops fully onto his back, eyes sparkling. He reaches for the ends of the boa. “You should definitely pull it off,” he says with a tug. Joe sinks to his knees bracketing Nicky’s waist, hands landing either side of Nicky’s head. 

“I think you should pull it off,” he mutters before leaning in for a hungry kiss. Unlike most of their kisses, however, Joe doesn’t close his eyes. When Nicky opens his, Joe relaxes his face and the monocle falls off, bouncing from Nicky’s forehead to the floor, which has Nicky helplessly laughing again, trying to curl up around the wrench of it in his belly. 

Joe grins triumphantly. 

He pushes back upright, ass resting against his heels, strokes Nicky’s hair above his ear as he picks up the fallen monocle. “I should fuck you wearing this.” 

“Madre di Dio, no,” Nicky wheezes. His face has gone beautifully red, creased in the corners of his eyes with the force of his humour. 

“I have to get into character, ya hayati! Hipsters fuck with their glasses on, I’m sure of it.” He pops the monocle back onto his face; it involves a lot of frowning to get it to stay, not an expression he normally wears around Nicky, but worth the effort to see the colour that Nicky’s face turns. 

Nicky makes a noise not unlike a kettle coming to the boil. 

Joe tsks. “You stay there. Don’t want you breaking an ankle moving in those shoes.” He adds, dark with personal experience, “Ruins the mood.” Then he shuffles back, still on his knees, until Nicky has space to part his legs so Joe can kneel-walk back up between them. “Grazie mille,” he says magnanimously. 

Nicky’s lips twitch. “Prego.” 

Despite his vocal protest, parts of Nicky’s anatomy are definitely on board with Joe’s plan. Nicky helpfully lifts his hips so that Joe can wiggle his briefs down, easing them over Nicky’s cock plumping up out of its nest of wiry brown curls. He manages to get them over one giant glittering platform shoe but they get caught on the other. Nicky, leaning on his elbows again to watch, snorts as Joe wrestles with the briefs for five wasted seconds before giving up. 

“Perhaps if you could see properly,” Nicky suggests. 

Joe waves his hand airily. “I can see the important things.” This he proves by diving face-first at Nicky’s crotch. 

Nicky jackknifes, “Santa Maria,” gasping from his mouth, but Joe knows Nicky, knows how to hold him down with an arm across his belly, how to muscle between his thighs for better access, how to swallow his dick whole in one overwhelming gulp while Nicky pulls wildly at Joe’s hair and then his own. The platforms thump hard against the carpeted floor as Nicky spasms. His legs try to slam shut but Joe’s mass is in the way. 

After the initial burst of frantic energy, they both ease into it, Nicky slumping flat again with fingers tangled in Joe’s curls, Joe slurping back up Nicky’s cock to focus on the head, salty and swelling against his tongue. Nine hundred years, yes, Joe has learned some tricks, but it could be 2022 or 1222 or 2622 (God willing) and each time will feel like this, fresh and present and new. 

As Nicky hardens all the way in his mouth, Joe cups his balls in one hand, rolls them and cradles them, fondles them in the way that has Nicky twitching his hips. Then Joe’s fingers slide lower to press at the sweaty patch of skin behind where a knuckle gently applied makes Nicky moan behind clenched teeth, legs falling wide open. They find their rhythm together, Joe with the pulsing vacuum of his mouth and the relentless flick of his tongue, Nicky grinding ever so gently up into _hot_ and _wet_ then down against _firm_ and _pressure_. Joe rocks his head side to side for a different sensation and is annoyed by a tickle behind his ear, reaches up to scratch it and comes across feathers. 

Huh. 

The idea comes surprising and wicked and he has to pull off Nicky’s cock just to hide his grin in the crease of his groin where the scent of Nicky, hot and musky, makes him a little dizzy. 

“Joe?” Nicky checks in, petting at Joe’s head, sounding both horny and concerned. Joe’s heart gives that old double-thump of adoration. He presses a kiss into the wiry curls under his lips, a kiss that turns rapidly more mouthy when Nicky groans and shuffles his legs. Joe involves his tongue to keep Nicky distracted, licks up and down and around his balls in maddening figure-eights, while his sweating face struggles to keep the monocle in place, almost blinded completely by the smear and fog over the glass. He unwinds the boa from around his neck, props himself on one elbow to trace a firm wet line up Nicky’s dick, licks a circle around the glans that has Nicky thrashing his head against the carpet. Joe pulls his mouth off, replaces it with a hand that slides effortlessly over the spit-slick length. It’s hot and throbbing now, Nicky rushing rapidly to the edge after days of reconnaissance. 

Joe grins to himself. Strokes harder, faster. Nicky bucks up into his hand straining for release. 

“Nicolo,” Joe says, which never fails to get Nicky to look at him. He does now, flushed sweaty red, half-crunching to stare down the length of his body at Joe between his thighs. 

Joe flicks the feather boa up the length of Nicky’s throbbing dick, grins and winks ineptly behind the monocle. 

Nicky chokes out a laugh, head thumping back, even as his cock erupts, come striping across Joe’s face before he aims it up to Nicky’s bare belly. 

Joe licks his lips, tastes the salt-tang of Nicky’s spend, grinds his own rigid dick against the soft carpet for some measure of stimulation while Nicky heaves for breath. His fingers are still petting Joe’s hair, tugging playfully at the curls. Joe is utterly blind at this point. He pats at Nicky’s thigh as he gets to his hands and knees and crawls up the long stretch of his body, only stopping when they’re face to face. With the back of his knuckles he strokes Nicky’s cheek. 

“Look at me,” he says. 

Nicky opens his eyes and there’s a microsecond of incomprehension before the laugh bursts out of him. Joe can only imagine how he appears: feather boa trailing behind him from one shoulder, monocle wedged against his eye and streaked with come, lines of come through his beard and even up to his hair, he can feel it wet and cooling across his forehead. 

“You mock my hipster disguise?” Joe demands, voice shaking with restrained laughter. Nicky lets out a wheezing giggle like his body’s too wrung out from orgasm to do more. “There’s only one punishment fit for this insult,” Joe says. 

“No, no, Joe don’t!” Nicky protests but it’s too late, Joe’s already pressed their cheeks together and is smearing come all over Nicky’s face. “Joe that’s disgusting!” Nicky yelps but he’s still laughing, laughing, and the sound is like a balloon swelling in Joe’s chest. 

The monocle finally pops off Joe’s face and tumbles away. Joe doesn’t retrieve it. Flush with warmth, he leans in to capture Nicky’s joy in his mouth and swallow it down inside him.


	2. Chapter 2

#### Sydney, Australia - November 1992

Nicky’s feet don’t hurt, but it’s been the long kind of day where they should be throbbing in his shoes and he feels almost cheated. He strains for a phantom reminder: the sharp pressure of a blister on the ball of his foot, the salty sting where the skin of his Achilles’ heel has rubbed raw through his socks. It’s all gone, of course. Five minutes after he sat down on the bus, he was as good as new. 

It was worth it though. A righteous kind of pain. Earned from hours and hours shadowing Nurse Afolabi, copying her every move, alert to any pearls of wisdom she might drop from bed to bed, ward to ward. Tomorrow he will do the same again, be rewarded with the same aching feet, and he will know that he learned something good, helped someone new. 

He passes Mr Kirby in the hallway on his way out for the evening run with his hyperactive spaniel, nods his head in greeting and receives a cheery “Alright?” in return. Grocery bag clunking against the door, Nicky twists his key and shoves, stepping into a dark and empty apartment. That’s to be expected on a Thursday. Joe teaches tahtib at the high school until eight because he enjoys seeding a little chaos into suburban Sydney by showing kids how to hit each other _effectively_ with sticks. He runs more conventional judo classes on Saturdays, and an over-subscribed self-defense course on Sundays, for variety. 

Lights hum as Nicky flicks them on. He skirts the open living space with its silent TV and cosy sofa, checks the answering machine (it reads “0”, to Nicky’s uneasy relief), before heading to the kitchen to dump his groceries on the Formica worktop. Joe’s coffee mug and cereal bowl rest upside down in the drying rack by the sink. The Sydney Morning Herald is still spread out across the breakfast bar, abandoned pencil left invitingly next to a crossword all filled in but for one answer. Fifteen down, eight letters: capital city of an archipelagic republic in the Mediterranean. 

There’s a heart drawn beside the clue. 

Nicky smiles to himself, scratches in the answer, then begins to make dinner. He felt like lasagna on the bus home, which has the added benefit of being a dish he can leave to cook by itself while he revises for his next exam. It’ll be ready by the time Joe gets in. 

As has become his habit since enrolling at nursing school, Nicky sits sideways on the sofa, notebook in the nook of his crossed legs and all his reading materials spread out in front of him, the radio on low with some young American boyband crooning softly about love and heartache. The thick smell of bubbling pesto and cheese warms the whole apartment, makes his belly grumble until he’s chewing on the end of his Biro, checking the clock every five minutes, ears peeled for noises in the hallway. 

Not long after 8PM, soft footsteps and jangling keys in the lock. Joe must have been in a hurry to get home. Nicky’s shoulders creep up to his ears and hang there, waiting for a sign. Hurried because it was a good day? Or hurried because it was not? 

“Smells good Nicky!” Joe calls as his shoes thud against the wall where he’s kicked them off. 

The shoulders relax. Sliding his books to the floor, Nicky unfolds himself in time to kneel up on the sofa for Joe’s kiss, callused hand cupping his face, familiar scratch of his thick beard. Something inside Nicky goes liquid, that long-held tension of a day spent apart melting away under Joe’s mouth. The hunger yawns deeper than expected. Joe’s breath fanning across his cheek, the tacky drag of their lips moving together, idle nip of teeth and just a flick of tongue. Gripping at Joe’s hips with greedy hands, Nicky moans low in his throat, a vibration traced by Joe’s thumb down over his vulnerable Adam’s apple. 

Untold minutes pass before Nicky finally pulls back for air. His lips tingle for a moment as they heal. Joe, eyes shut, feathers a kiss to the bridge of Nicky’s nose, then the corner of his eye, then his forehead, resting there and just breathing, faint whistle of air ruffling Nicky’s hair. Nicky slides his hands up to frame Joe’s ribs. The warmth of his body through his shirt, the flex of bone and muscle as his lungs work: automatic, methodical, dependable. Nicky closes his eyes to better feel the relief. Every day is a question and, so far, by the grace of destiny, every day this has been the answer. 

Joe smacks another kiss to the top of Nicky’s head before he backs out of his grasp, turning to follow his nose. “Is it nearly ready? I’m starving.” 

Nicky shivers his shoulders a little to dispel the mood. Hopping over his study pile, he follows Joe into the kitchenette, grabbing his oven gloves and nudging Joe away from the oven with his hip. The heat blasts into his face like a roaring desert wind, whipping him back eight months - or fifty years - or eighty years - unforgiving sun in a burning blue sky, shrill scream of incoming missiles, sand and ash and smoke choking him: the taste of the twentieth century. 

“It’s ready,” he murmurs, voice suddenly gone flat and quiet. 

“Nicky.” Joe rubs a hand on the small of his back in gentle circles that widen on each pass, grounding Nicky in his body here and now beneath the reassuring weight warm and solid over his spine. “Come on then.” But Joe waits until Nicky collects himself with a stuttering breath, waits until he turns the oven dial to OFF and hooks the bubbling lasagna out. Only then does Joe stop touching him to fetch plates from the overhead cupboard, and cutlery from the drawer next to the sink, and their sole pair of wine glasses from the spot by the wine rack, from which he also chooses a bottle of Vermentino - Australian, not Italian, because Nicky isn’t a _total_ purist. The Herald becomes a makeshift tablecloth. Joe smiles to see the crossword completed in Nicky’s curly cursive under the base of his wine glass. Nicky dishes up while the radio DJ chirps something about a “classic throwback from ancient history” and then plays Fleetwood Mac and Joe huffs a breath, amused, through his nose. Nicky’s eyes crinkle at the corners. 

“How were the kids today?” Nicky asks as he’s dishing up a huge oozing slab of lasagna onto Joe’s plate. 

Joe pops the cork on the wine bottle and pours for them both. “Really good. Safaa is really coming into her own. Paul didn’t cry once. And I only had to split up the triplets four times.” 

“A miracle,” Nicky says dryly, sliding onto the stool next to Joe at the breakfast bar, knees pressed together, elbows brushing. “Anyone intere-” He stops to allow Joe the first moan around his mouthful, smiles to himself. “Good?” 

Hand on his heart: “I would wed this dish if I wasn’t already a happily married man.” 

Nicky rolls his eyes, blushing - even after all these years - and hides behind a cheesy fork load. The taste of pesto doesn’t catapult him back to his homeland, not when he’s had it in so many variations across the world, but it does stir some base sense of home and familiarity that the domestic trappings of a shoebox apartment in suburban Sydney simply can’t reach. Eases a little of the lingering tension knotted in his belly. 

When the heat in his cheeks has faded, Nicky asks, “Anyone catch your eye at the harbour?” 

Joe bobs his head, swallows. “A lot of Japanese tourists today. I think a cruise ship must have docked.” Sips his wine thoughtfully. Studies the way the light moves through the glass as he turns it this way and that. Takes a breath and holds it for a long second. 

Goosebumps ripple up Nicky’s spine. 

“I saw someone. From Kuwait.” 

Nicky says nothing. 

“One we got out.” 

Nicky waits, silent. Joe glances at him from the corner of his eye. 

“I don’t think he recognised me.” 

“You drew him?” 

Joe puts his glass down on the newspaper. “He was with friends from university. Smiling. Happy.” He spreads his fingers - still steady, Nicky has never seen them shake - against the black printed ink. There is charcoal smudged under his nails. “It’s only been a year but - it was like it never happened.” 

Nicky takes the time to think the implications through. Their cover isn’t blown, or Joe would have hustled him out of the hospital and they would already be on the next plane away from the country. He eyes Joe, who seems thoughtful but not distressed. This is the evidence of their work: helping people in their hour of need so that they can go on and do something worthwhile with their lives. Even if that means a Kuwaiti teenager escaping to the other side of the planet where Nicky and Joe just happen to by laying low. 

So strange to think that a world that has doubled in size during their long life should now feel so small. 

Gently, Nicky places his palm on the back of Joe’s hand, offers a soft smile when Joe tilts his head to look at him. “Life goes on,” he says. “We’re more than proof of that.” 

“Ha,” says Joe. He turns his hand to hold Nicky’s, fingers twining together warm and strong. 

After dinner, with leftovers apportioned and cooling in Tupperware for tomorrow’s lunches, they stand at the sink side by side, Nicky elbow-deep in soapy water, Joe with a dish towel in hand, bopping his hips to the radio. Peace or war, north or south, desert or urban jungle, Nicky finds comfort in the dreary day-to-day chores, the necessities of living: dishes, laundry, food. When there’s time for these intimacies with Joe, no matter what else may be going on around them, Nicky’s sense of normality is recalibrated, restored. 

When the last of the plates are put away, Joe stands behind Nicky while he’s scrubbing baked cheese from the lasagna tray, wrapping his arms around Nicky’s waist. Nicky braces his legs to support Joe’s leaning weight, shivering at the mouth pressed to the knob of his spine above the neckline of his threadbare t-shirt. “Thank you for dinner,” Joe murmurs there into the skin. 

Nicky closes his eyes. Joe’s chest presses against his shoulders with every inhale. 

Another kiss, quick squeeze of strong arms over Nicky’s belly before Joe lets go. His voice fades as he goes to find his satchel at the door, saying, “Picked this up today.” Nicky glances over his shoulder at Joe wandering back into sight waving a cassette tape in hand. “They were busking opposite my spot.” Nicky abandons the lasagna tray - it’ll be easier to clean after a soak anyway - as Joe slots the cassette into the tape deck, clicks Play, and the speakers hiss. Then Peruvian panpipes breathe out: Nicky can suddenly see the razor sharp Andes in his mind’s eye, high blue sky and golden sun, the colourful _frazadas_ woven in thick alpaca wool. He remembers earthy _pachamanca_ , the way the smoke made his eyes sting and lingered in their clothes for days. 

He looks closely at Joe with half a smile curving one corner of his mouth. “The next destination?” 

Joe stands with his hands on his hips, head cocked to observe Nicky right back. “Maybe.” He shrugs one shoulder. “Not yet.” He holds out his hand. “Come here.” 

Nicky wipes his hands on the damp towel and raises his eyebrows. “You can’t slow dance to panpipes, and I don’t remember any of the traditional dances.” Nevertheless, he steps around the breakfast bar, sliding his fingers between Joe’s, who reels him in closer, tucked into his body. Chest to chest they sway completely out of rhythm with the breathy music. There’s hardly space to move in between the sofa and the barstools. They circle in one spot, cheeks pressed together, and Nicky sighs from his very core. 

Since moving to Sydney after the itinerant months post-war, when Nicky isn’t on a late shift and Joe hasn’t gotten entangled in helping the kids who have glued to him as their mentor and savior, some nights they curl up on the sofa watching dreadful TV. Some nights they take a walk through the neighborhood, moving so close together that their shadows blend into one, sharing anecdotes about their days or silently enjoying the company of each other. Some nights they go to bed early just for the sheer novelty of a comfortable mattress, soft pillows, blankets to blunt the world’s edges. 

And some nights, Joe might halt their mindless circling as the panpipes play, might lift Nicky’s chin with a finger, as he does now, turning Nicky’s face towards him to share breath. Reminding them both, months after the fact, that the lungs inflating inches from Nicky’s own _did_ heal from catastrophic injury, death by air-to-ground goddamn _missile_ , Joe is still breathing, still here to share this fragile pit-stop in their long lives, still here for Nicky to love, and the gratitude blooms through him like sunrise. 

Nicky pulls back scant millimeters, brushes the tip of his nose against Joe’s, murmurs into the warm space between them, “Come to bed.” 

Joe shuts down the stereo and closes the blinds with a metallic rattle, waits in the hallway while Nicky puts the leftovers in the fridge. He holds out one hand for Nicky and switches off the lights with the other. Nicky follows him to the tiny windowless bathroom, pees while Joe brushes his teeth at the half-size sink before they swap places, hands on hips to shuffle around each other. In the bedroom, navigated by the twinkling orange glow of sodium streetlights through the window, they strip in silence, slide naked under the covers from opposite sides of the bed. Joe lays flat on his back, gathers Nicky into his arms, presses a kiss to his crown. Nicky rests his head over Joe’s chest to better hear the bellows of his lungs, the steady drumming of his heart. 

“I’m alright, beloved,” Joe murmurs. He pets Nicky’s hair with firm strokes, solid and real. “I’m here. I’m with you.” 

Nicky lifts his head to catch Joe’s eyes in the dim light. What can he say? Joe knows all his secrets, his dark inner spaces, the guilt he carries strapped to his back, the anger and pain and fear. Knows, too, his relief - the end of another war, a few lives spared pointlessly brutal deaths, their family of four safe and free in the wind - and his hope, sometimes battered by life but never broken. 

Joe cups Nicky’s face, strokes a thumb across his lips, his eyes soft and warm as they stare up at Nicky, who kisses the callused pad, then braces his weight on an elbow to lean up and over, meets Joe’s open mouth with his own. A gentle kiss, mint-tinged, becomes two, becomes three, each as soft as the last. Nicky slings a leg across Joe and rocks up onto his knees without breaking the connection of their lips. With his elbows flat to the mattress he can bury his fingers in Joe’s thick welcoming curls, can tease his nails over the sensitive skin behind Joe’s ears just to elicit a shiver. 

He lets his weight rest heavy across Joe’s torso and Joe accepts it, accepts everything that Nicky gives him: the slick swipe of his tongue, the experimental rocking of his hips where they’re pressed only half-hard, the muffled oath Nicky smothers in Joe’s mouth. Joe’s hands skate the line of Nicky’s neck, soft brush of calluses that sends sensations cascading down Nicky’s back. His palms come to rest bracketing the balls of Nicky’s shoulders in a way that holds him close so their kiss can deepen. 

Beneath Nicky’s hips where they’re pressed together hot and a little sweaty, Joe’s cock twitches against the underside of Nicky’s balls. Nicky breaks their kiss to smile, stares forehead to forehead into Joe’s twinkling eyes as he rocks his pelvis down a little harder, relishes the groan it ekes from Joe’s throat. 

Nicky pushes himself upright. Through sleepy eyes, Joe stares up at him, his fingers drifting lazily down Nicky’s arms until their hands meet, catch and hold. Nicky rocks his hips just to see how Joe’s eyes flutter, how his fingers flex in Nicky’s, how his abdomen twitches with the yearning to thrust up. 

“Let me take care of you,” Nicky whispers. 

Joe smiles at him, at once indulgent and besotted. “You always do, ya amar.” 

Straddling Joe’s hips on his knees like this gives Nicky real leverage. He lets go Joe’s hand for a brief second to reach between his legs, gets a little handsy with Joe’s cock in the process of rearranging the angle. Joe hisses and bucks into Nicky’s too-light grip, huffs through his nose when Nicky lets go with a parting stroke of his forefinger across the slit, gathering a bead of precome there. 

“Nicky,” Joe pants, held hand spasming in Nicky’s, free hand gripping Nicky’s thigh just above the knee. He sighs watching Nicky lick the smear from his finger, smiles when Nicky smiles at him. “You’re beautiful, my love. An ancient god of eroticism come to bless me.” 

“That’s blasphemy,” Nicky murmurs through a smile, bending in half to bestow a wet kiss on Joe’s waiting mouth. The play of Joe’s tongue against his own makes his cock pulse, leaking messily between them. Joe’s hand wanders up Nicky’s thigh to his hip where Nicky captures it, pulls it to his mouth to kiss the knuckles. 

“Nicky,” Joe whines. He tries to rock his hips but Nicky’s weight has him pinned to the mattress. 

“Hush,” Nicky says. “Let me.” Sitting upright again, he balances his weight between his knees and his hands supported by Joe’s sturdy arms. He rolls his hips in a luxurious circle that has Joe keening. “Like this,” Nicky groans, rocking his hips again. “Just like this.” Frotting always takes longer, draws out the build-up to orgasm but they’ve got peace and quiet and a bed, they’ve got each other and they’ve got the night. 

Nicky braces himself - leans on Joe, who doesn’t falter, cords of muscle in his forearm flexing without question - and sets an achingly slow rhythm, long thrusts of his cock into the mess of precome on Joe’s belly, Joe’s cock riding the hot sweating crease of Nicky’s groin. He almost preens under Joe’s admiring eyes, makes sure to roll his whole body into each ponderous grinding movement. 

“So gorgeous,” Joe murmurs. Nicky doesn’t blush, but only because he is already flushed red with exertion and arousal. “The things you do to me, my love. I never want to be parted from you.” His thigh muscles bunch under Nicky’s ass but otherwise Joe lays lax against the pillows and lets Nicky work them both over. “I’ll always come back to you,” he says. Nicky’s head drops back as that old familiar fear lances through his heart, stuttering his hips. Joe squeezes their fingers together. “Listen, hayati. I will always come back to you.” Nicky grips back, meets Joe’s eyes in the dark, as certain as the stars. “Have faith,” Joe whispers. “Have faith in me.” 

“Always.” It comes out almost a sob. Joe guides him down to kissing distance, cranes his neck to meet Nicky’s mouth, and with gentle kisses he relieves Nicky of the burden of his pain, his fear, his horror, uses a teasing tongue and skillful lips to replace uncertainty with surety. 

“I love you,” Joe whispers, breath for breath, into Nicky’s mouth. 

Nicky rubs the tips of their noses together, presses a kiss to Joe’s bearded chin. “And I you.” Another kiss before he sits upright again, widening his knees to gain more leverage. Joe’s arms brace him immediately. Nicky’s whole chest aches with the force of emotion that sweeps through him; he has to blink back tears. “I love you,” he says, and rocks his hips with purpose this time. “I love you.” Another grind. “I love you. I love you.” 

Between his legs Joe twitches and throbs, his cock a searing line of heat tucked alongside Nicky’s balls. Their knuckles blanch pale as Nicky leans forward more, grinds down harder. His voice cracks but he keeps going, every deep thrust of his hips paired with an “I love you”. 

Joe watches with eyes stunned wide and unblinking, mouth dropped open to gasp for hitching breath, the muscles of his belly flinching with the urge to rock up. His palms are sweaty, chest heaving. Nicky meets and holds his gaze. His pace doesn’t falter: slow, hard, long rolls of his hips, dragging his groin against Joe’s cock, their balls pressed hot together slick with sweat and precome. 

There’s not enough friction to get anywhere fast but gradually Joe winds up, a spring coiling tighter and tighter. Every merciless roll of Nicky’s hips has Joe keening, his whole body beading with sweat, head off the pillow so he can look down the length of his body at Nicky grinding, grinding, grinding their cocks together. The air is heavy with the scent of their sex, quiet but for Joe’s bitten whimpers and Nicky muttering, “Come for me. I love you. Come on Joe.” All the muscles in Joe’s body tighten as he spirals up to orgasm, riding the cusp of that edge until he’s shaking with it. 

“Nicky, babe, habibi,” Joe groans, hovering on the very rim of ecstasy. Nicky’s hands hurt with how hard Joe’s gripping them but he doesn’t stop, churning his hips ceaselessly, driving Joe on. 

“Come for me, come for me, my love,” he begs, heaving for breath, “I love you, come for me, come for me, come -” 

Joe’s head rolls against the pillow, back arching under Nicky’s mass as he finally comes, choking at the ceiling. Nicky rocks him through it, enraptured as always by the sight of Joe undone, panting and sticky and wild. His hips slow, and the burn of exertion in his thighs lasts the span of time it takes for Joe to blink his eyes open. A slow, sated smile spreads over Joe’s face. Nicky’s heart skips a beat. 

“Come on then,” Joe says, soft and sleepy and hoarse. He twitches his hips invitingly, and Nicky is reminded of the throbbing heat of his cock, the ache in his balls. Joe frees a hand to wrap around Nicky’s dick. 

“Let me -” Nicky starts. 

“It’s alright, rohi.” A deliberate down-up stroke has Nicky half-swallowing his own tongue. Joe grins at him. “You took care of me. Let me take care of you.” 

Nicky hadn’t realised how close he was, so caught up in chasing Joe’s orgasm, but in a few slick twisting strokes Joe has him skyrocketing to the edge again. Nicky bounces in his lap, sharp thrusts into the tunnel of Joe’s fist, the sounds of wet flesh obscene in his ears. Joe eggs him on, “You’re so beautiful like this, so gorgeous, I need you to mark me up, come all over me my love, my soul.” Joe’s calluses catch on the underside of his cockhead and the orgasm bursts from him, as much relief as pleasure as he pulses in Joe’s grip. Joe massages him through it, milking more and more come out of him, as if Nicky hasn’t been leaking over Joe’s belly the entire time. He doesn’t stop until Nicky is twitching, thighs trembling either side of Joe’s hips. 

When he releases Nicky’s cock, Nicky droops down, heedless of the mess between them, to rest his head against Joe’s throat, breathing heavy even as his hips jolt reflexively against Joe, riding out the last ebbs of orgasm. The both of them hiss at the overstimulation but Nicky doesn’t move, and Joe doesn’t move him. Joe’s heart thuds dutifully in his chest, a welcome drumbeat Nicky feels in his own lungs, and as Joe’s hands pet down his spine in soothing strokes, Nicky sighs from his depths. 

Long minutes later, Joe murmurs sleepily, “Beloved.” He presses a kiss to the crown of Nicky’s head. “We will be stuck like this in the morning if we don’t clean up now.” 

Nicky grumbles without coherence, but he allows himself to be rolled sideways, which does involve some uncomfortable tugging of come-tacky pubic hair and not a small amount of squelching. Joe huffs a laugh through his nose, and that makes Nicky smile. 

Hushed in the privacy afforded by the dark, they share the tiny bathroom again to wipe down the worst of the mess with a wet flannel passed from one to the other. Joe captures Nicky’s chin between his thumb and forefinger, holds him still for a thorough kiss that leaves Nicky breathless and dizzy, and conveys as eloquently as any language everything that Joe feels. 

Then, hand in hand, they crawl back into bed, and curl up facing each other, hands intertwined between them. Nicky watches as Joe’s eyes slip closed, breath deepening, fingers twitching, watches as the first of the night’s dreams makes Joe smile. 

There is peace, for now, and time enough, in this little corner of a vast world that they can temporarily call their own.


End file.
